thanks to
th_esaurus for the link
Aug. 8th, 2007 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'd like to be the first person to say Thank you to Six Apart and Livejournal.
No, I am not joking. I now have a strong urge to slap anyone who's bitching about LJ's bannings. 'Cause, fuck, we have things good right now.
-Luce
ETA:
miriam_heddy calls shenanigans in the comments here and raises a few points against the essay. Keep it in mind, folks.
No, I am not joking. I now have a strong urge to slap anyone who's bitching about LJ's bannings. 'Cause, fuck, we have things good right now.
-Luce
ETA:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-08 11:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 12:06 am (UTC)Um, if you disagree, I apologize for the wording in my post? It's a bit harsh and I could change it?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 01:38 am (UTC)Sorry about the confusion!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 12:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 12:50 am (UTC)And don't worry. Everyone is singled out. It's some nifty script they use. I thought my own heart stopped when I saw my name there.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 12:51 am (UTC)I was like, dude, I have NO IDEA who this person is!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 12:55 am (UTC)Then I actually thought about it and realized that I'm not a big enough player in any fandom to warrant a name mention in an essay. You, on the other hand, Ms. 500 Fandoms... *grin*
*hands you some cookies*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 12:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 01:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 01:18 am (UTC)And he does all this without ever engaging any of the legal arguments and discussions that have been made by fans who are lawyers (and there's a whole comm full of them). Nor does he ever admit that none of the things he calls "illegal" have ever been tested in a court of law (which means that no judge or jury has ever determined that they are, or would be considered, illegal).
He's clever and a decent rhetorician. But he's still an ass, and I find his unwillingness to actually enter into actual conversation with the lawyer fans out there really irritating, as is his scripting our names into his collective of "fans who need to know the Truth (as he tells it).
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 01:25 am (UTC)I'd be supremely interested in seeing this comm, especially if they're discussing this essay or the topic thereof. I'm suddenly worried about just how illegal fannish activity is.
I'd be happy to hear this is bullshit because, frankly, his observations scare me quite a bit.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 01:38 am (UTC)http://community.livejournal.com/fandom_lawyers/
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 05:02 am (UTC)This was my problem (well, my biggest one) with the essay- he says "a lot of things fandom does is illegal, and nobody wants to talk about it!" but he's wrong. Legally grey? Sure, maybe. Illegal? No.
Which was my major problem with LJ, actually, apart from the lousy PR. I understand their unwillingness to deal with legally grey areas, but that still doesn't mean what we do is illegal.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 03:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 03:33 am (UTC)I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I think SA/LJ's handling things halfway well right now.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-11 12:10 am (UTC)I'm obviously going to argue and say that TPTB at 6A are roundly idiots who can't keep their story (or their TOS) straight for more than five minutes.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-11 12:15 am (UTC)http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241884.html?thread=12745948#t12745948
Also, since I posted in my LJ about the article, a number of people have responded with further explanations of just what's so wrong about Mr. Terrible's terrible arguments.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 03:33 am (UTC)Here.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 03:57 am (UTC)There are certainly things posted on LJ that can get the poster into plenty of legal trouble, but I would not say that fandom is illegal and we should be kissing the boots of 6A for allowing us to get away with it for this long. Fandom has existed for years before LiveJournal and it will continue to exist for years after 6A collapses under its rather incompetent customer service. And that whole section about what Mr. and Mrs. Whitebread think is a complete straw man that has nothing to do with anything that the fans here have been arguing...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 04:04 am (UTC)But still, it seems like there is very little (if any) precedent for rulings in modern fandom and it makes me nervous.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 05:25 am (UTC)*fans self*
*checks pants again*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 05:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 01:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 01:57 pm (UTC)Yes, the average joe on the street wouldn't get excited at he mention of fanfic, but they'd just think you were nerdy for referencing it, not an all-out pervert.
As for the legality of non child porny stuff, I think it's safe to say that in this web 3.0 age, Fanfic and such are actively encouraged, and, to continue to use Harry Potter fandom as an example (seeing as it's seemingly the one worst effected), it's become acceptable to the point where the canon creators are reading and enjoying and commending fanfic/art communities. (JKR gave a fansite award to Immeritus (http://www.immeritus.org) A sirius Black Fan community, and even went so far as to admit that she'd used fanart from there as her Desktop wallpaper. It's also believed she loves shoebox project, not that it's possible not to ;))
I think it's far to say that nobody is going to sue for fanfic anymore. It's now almost badge of honor for celebrity, a "you know you've made it when someone writes filth about you" kind of benchmark (Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh is perhaps the best example of this sort of attitude, given his tendency to read
IN conclusion, Fandom is not, by any stretch of the definition, a peversion, it's merely a particularly creative avenue of ones Geekdom. Trainspotters are not perverts (well, excet for CHristopher Lloyd's character in Track 29), ramblers are not perverts, scrabble enthusiasts are not perverts, yet they all receive the same reaction from the joe on the street.
And as for LJ's handling of it, I think this time around they're showing that they've learned from the mistakes of the strikethrough incident. Fandom, however, clearly has not, unless that lesson is "how to be ridiculously paranoid and blinkered"
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-11 12:07 am (UTC)Just imagine if he'd said "gay" instead of fan.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-09 09:24 pm (UTC)